My Aunt Lillian should have been an interior designer. Although she might not have made much money when she would have been in her prime back in the mid-1950s.

The reason: Aunt Lillian was ahead of her time. Back when every room was painted off white or — for the daring — pastel blue, faded yellow or mint green — Aunt Lillian had a red kitchen. The large, farm kitchen, with a stove that was half-electric and half wood fire, contained a large table. And Aunt Lillian always had cookies and other goodies to fill the tummies of visiting nieces and nephews.

I always felt at home in Aunt Lillian’s kitchen. She was a kind lady who prayed a lot and found a moment for every child, no matter how many traipsed into her home at once. I was always surprised to hear my parents and other adults in the family talk about her choice of kitchen color as if there were something wrong with it. I didn’t think much about the color, I just felt warm in her kitchen.

Of course, Aunt Lillian’s red kitchen was decades ahead of the trend to use bold colors inside our homes. I wonder, did she read an article in an old McCall’s magazine about using deep colors in your home? Was red paint on sale? Did she have to talk Uncle Carl into it?

These days, she would be right in style, not necessarily with the red but because anything goes as long as it looks right in the room.

HGTV.com warns that the right red may create a feeling of energy but the wrong red may just feel like entrapment. On its website under the tab, “Decorating,” the HGTV experts suggest you answer these five questions before picking a color: Where is the room; how many windows are there and what direction do they face; is there landscaping outdoors that will affect your interior colors; who will use the room and for what; and will it be a sociable and lively place or a peaceful place.

The website suggests you pull some colors from a favorite piece in the room, maybe the couch or a throw cover or pillow. Get paint samples and try them out. Look for complementary colors, not just perfect matches.

HouseBeautiful.com suggests these color schemes: blue and gray; green and brown; gray-green and aubergine (dark purple or brownish-purple); blue and green; blue on blue; gray and lavender; gray and mahogany; and red on red.

You can also look at the “in” colors for the year. Several companies publish what they think are going to be fashionable colors in clothing, home décor and furnishings. Check the Pantone website for its forecast, which labels Dazzling Blue (the same as Facebook’s Social Butterfly Blue) as the color of 2014. Next in line is violet tulip, a shade preferred by “Downton Abbey’s” Lady Mary, and radiant orchid, said to be favored by first lady Michelle Obama and Kate Middleton. Those are fashion colors at the moment, but furniture and paint colors usually follow fashion.

Page 2 of 2 - Geri Nikolai writes about home, garden and nature for the Rockford Register Star. You may contact her at gmnikolai@gmail.com or 815-871-6850.